SKT, Ericsson, BMW hail connected car speed record

South Korean operator SK Telecom (SKT), together with Ericsson and BMW Korea, said it achieved a peak transmission speed of 3.6Gb/s for a connected vehicle travelling at a speed of 170 km/h.

SKT said the speed is a world record on a pre-standard 5G network. The demo, which took place at BMW driving centre in Incheon, is a follow up to tests the three companies conducted in November on what they claim is the world largest mmWave trial network using the 28GHz band.

Using advanced beamforming and beam tracking technologies, SKT said it was able to address limitations of millimeter wave bands stemming from the fact radio waves in these bands use high gain and high directivity antenna, which causes signals to be often blocked by objects standing in their path and have narrower coverage.

“The connected car is regarded as the barometer for 5G, as it can only be realised through the combination of all 5G technologies,” said Park Jin-hyo, SKT’s SVP and head of network technology R&D centre. “As ultra-high speed and ultra-low latency are prerequisites for realising autonomous driving and immersive media services, the 3.6Gb/s transmission speed we demonstrated not only brings us a step closer to realising autonomous driving, but will also have a great impact on a broader range of industries.”

The ultra-high transmission speed at millimeter waves is expected to have a huge impact on all 5G use cases including augmented reality, virtual reality, drones and robots, Park said.

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Joseph Waring

Joseph Waring joins Mobile World Live as the Asia editor for its new Asia channel. Before joining the GSMA, Joseph was group editor for Telecom Asia for more than ten years. In addition to writing features, news and blogs, he...